The Next Reel Film Podcast

“They are criminals, no doubt. But they’re brave. They’re dangerous because they know how to fight. They’re bad, but there’s a good side to them as well.”
From Curry Western to Cultural Phenomenon: Sholay at 50
Released in 1975, Ramesh Sippy's Sholay revolutionized Indian cinema by blending Western genre conventions with Bollywood sensibilities. This epic action-adventure, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, took the "dacoit Western" subgenre to new heights while drawing inspiration from Seven Samurai. Initially struggling at the box office, Sholay went on to become one of Indian cinema's most influential films, running continuously in theaters for over 19 years. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we wrap up our Golden Jubilee: 1975's Pioneering Visions in Global Cinema series and kick off our Seven Samurai Family series with a conversation about Sholay.
A Genre-Defying Masterpiece
Pete and Andy explore how Sholay successfully meshes multiple genres—western, action, musical, and comedy—while maintaining its distinct Indian identity. They discuss the film's stunning visual compositions, from the rocky terrain sequences to the vibrant Holi festival celebrations, noting how these contrasts enhance rather than detract from the narrative.
Character Dynamics and Performance
The hosts dive deep into the chemistry between Jai (Bachchan) and Veeru (Dharmendra), comparing their relationship to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They examine how the film balances their playful friendship with serious dramatic moments, particularly highlighting the emotional impact of their final scene together.
Notable Discussion Points:
  • The significance of Gabbar Singh as one of Indian cinema's most memorable villains
  • The dual ending controversy and its thematic implications
  • The film's treatment of female characters through Basanti and Radha
  • The integration of musical numbers, including the iconic motorcycle sequence
  • Technical achievements on a modest budget of 3.3 million dollars
  • Cultural impact and lasting influence on Indian cinema
Legacy and Influence
Andy shares fascinating details about Sholay's enduring cultural impact, from its quotable dialogue becoming part of everyday Indian speech to its songs being used in diplomatic relations. Pete, new to Indian cinema, describes his complete enjoyment of the film despite cultural differences, highlighting its universal appeal.
We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in. The Next Reel—when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
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Creators and Guests

Host
Andy Nelson
With over 25 years of experience in film, television, and commercial production, Andy has cultivated an enduring passion for storytelling in all its forms. His enthusiasm for the craft began in his youth when he and his friends started making their own movies in grade school. After studying film at the University of Colorado Boulder, Andy wrote, directed, and produced several short films while also producing indie features like Netherbeast Incorporated and Ambush at Dark Canyon. Andy has been on the production team for award-winning documentaries such as The Imposter and The Joe Show, as well as TV shows like Investigation Discovery’s Deadly Dentists and Nat Geo’s Inside the Hunt for the Boston Bombers. Over a decade ago, he started podcasting with Pete and immediately embraced the medium. Now, as a partner at TruStory FM, Andy looks forward to more storytelling through their wide variety of shows. Throughout his career, Andy has passed on his knowledge by teaching young minds the crafts of screenwriting, producing, editing, and podcasting. Outside of work, Andy is a family man who enjoys a good martini, a cold beer, a nice cup o’ joe. And always, of course, a great movie.
Host
Pete Wright
#Movies, #ADHD, & #Podcasting • Co-founder @trustory.fm🎥 The Next Reel Family of #Film Podcasts @thenextreel.com🎙️ Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast @takecontroladhd.com📖 Co-author of Unapologetically ADHD • https://unapologeticallyadhdbook.com

What is The Next Reel Film Podcast?

A show about movies and how they connect.
We love movies. We’ve been talking about them, one movie a week, since 2011. It’s a lot of movies, that’s true, but we’re passionate about origins and performance, directors and actors, themes and genres, and so much more. So join the community, and let’s hear about your favorite movies, too.
When the movie ends, our conversation begins.

Pete Wright:

I'm Pete Wright.

Andy Nelson:

And I'm Andy Nelson.

Pete Wright:

Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends,

Andy Nelson:

our conversation begins.

Pete Wright:

Sholay is over. How do you plan to fight me, Thakur? I've long cut off and discarded your arms.

Pete Wright:

That's a spoiler of a line, I guess. Takes about two and a half hours to figure out what that means.

Andy Nelson:

Spoiler on a 50 year old movie, but yes. Yep. We're gonna have a lot of those for people who are tuning in. So if you don't wanna be spoiled on a 50 year old movie, go watch Sholay before you tune into this conversation.

Pete Wright:

Yes. Yes.

Pete Wright:

Okay. Sholay Yeah. You this was on your list.

Andy Nelson:

This is on two lists, Pete. This is exciting. This is our little crossover between our Golden Jubilee nineteen seventy five's pioneering visions in global cinema series celebrating films that are at their fiftieth anniversaries. And this is the crossover with our seven samurai family series. So we'll be shifting into that briefly before we jump back into our 50 or moving back through history every twenty five years.

Pete Wright:

Yes. This briefly. And this one, actually, I'm surprised it's such a long movie because there are only two samurai in it.

Andy Nelson:

Yes. Although, you could argue Gabbor is one as well.

Pete Wright:

Okay.

Andy Nelson:

He does some serious sword damage.

Pete Wright:

He does. Maybe we'll give you three. Okay. You had already talked about this movie. You've been talking about other movies.

Andy Nelson:

I hadn't talked about this movie. No. You hadn't, but

Pete Wright:

you talked about 10 other movies Yes. With this dude in them.

Andy Nelson:

Amitabh Bachchan is one of our, one of our stars here of this film. And, yes, for our for my Cinema Scope podcast, I have an episode that I think by the time this is out, it will be out called India's angry young man. Amitabh Bachchan was in a, he kind of with Zanjeer and Deewaar and a number of other films right around this period of time, paired with the writing duo that we have here, Salim Javed, ended up creating this movement of films in India where they were really capturing kind of the the angst of people at the time with what was going on in India. Amitabh Bachchan is really good at being the angry young man, and, it really kind of shot him to stardom. And then this movie, which isn't really featuring him as the angry young man.

Andy Nelson:

He's much more fun loving through this film. But, this film really kind of pushed him to super stardom. And and and, you know, he has long been revered as one of India's greatest actors. He's still acting to this day. And what's fascinating, Pete, which I think is amazing, this is an actor who every Sunday, he goes out on his patio and he waves to the crowd.

Andy Nelson:

And there are thousands and thousands of people that show up at his place every Sunday just to see him come on. Still. To this day, he still comes out every Sunday and waves to the crowd and they wave at him. It's amazing. You can go to you can go to YouTube.

Andy Nelson:

It's crazy that it's it's still is just so popular. Like, people come and ask him to, like, give them the name of their newborn child. It's wild. How loved he is in India. It's called his Sunday Darshan.

Andy Nelson:

So, yeah, just just Google that or just look it up on YouTube. And, yeah, it's crazy. It is totally crazy.

Pete Wright:

He's such an interesting guy. I love his promote his his main portrait picture on IMDb. He has youthful brown locks and a very white goatee. 249 credits, this guy. He's been around doing movies for a long, long time.

Andy Nelson:

He definitely has. Definitely has. And this this period is really he was kind of, like, not a big name until the writing duo. Again, they had seen something of his, and they said, they were they were pitching. They're an interesting writing pair, just as a side note.

Andy Nelson:

Salim Javed. They recognize that the writers don't get credit for the work that they do. I mean, they get credited, but it's not like like there's a lot that goes into putting the story together. And they wanted to they they said the writers should be getting celebrated. And so when one of their movies came out, they actually rode around the city, and they wrote written by Salim Javed.

Andy Nelson:

It's like Salim hyphen Javed on all of the posters. So people knew that they were the writers. And this got them like, they they started pushing for getting billed on the posters, getting billed on all the marketing materials. Wow. And they turned themselves into superstars.

Andy Nelson:

And people would go to movies just because it was a Saleem Javed written script. There are so many lines, including from Scholle that Saleem Javed have written that are still quoted to this day by politicians, by advertisers, like, everywhere. It's it's like, gonna make an offer. They can't refuse sorts of lines. But in India, like, they're prominent to that culture.

Andy Nelson:

So, anyway, Salim Javed had seen Bacchan in a film as a bit part, but they're like, this guy this guy could actually do this part well of this having that angry tone. And they convinced the the team making it to cast him in the lead role, and he got it. And that kind of pushed him into this place where he was getting recognized as an actor that people wanted to see and pushed him to kind of end up creating through all the filmmakers and writers that he was working with this angry young man persona. So it it's a fascinating performance. And here, we're seeing him at, like, the peak of his superstardom.

Pete Wright:

Yeah. He's I mean, he's very charismatic, in this movie. Alright. Well, enough is enough. Let me just shatter all assumptions.

Pete Wright:

Pete liked this movie a lot. I had a blast. I shouldn't have. It's ridiculous, but it was, like, nonstop fun. And I realized that in general, I'm in the bag for Indian movies, Bollywood movies, Bollywood fringe movies, from Chole to RRR.

Pete Wright:

I am down for these movies. This these are super fun. Maybe it's because they're so sort of culturally different than what I expect from a movie. I don't expect our two heroes to break out of jail and have a a friendship love duet on a motorcycle. I don't expect that.

Andy Nelson:

But we got it here. Was I down for it? You bet. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. And, you know, I I think, overall, I'm actually kind of wiping the sweat off my brow because I was a little nervous with this particular series looking at these films that with things like Gene Dealman in here and Chole.

Andy Nelson:

I was just I wasn't sure what to expect from you. So I'm happy to know that you have

Pete Wright:

One more down.

Andy Nelson:

Largely enjoyed this this series. Yeah. It's been it's been good. We've only got one more, and that's our our next member bonus episode, which is the super infra man from Hong Kong. So we'll see how that one fares, but I'm looking forward to it.

Pete Wright:

Just judging by the poster. I don't know how we could go wrong. I don't either.

Andy Nelson:

Oh, man. Alright. This is an interesting story because this film really kind of created this new subgenre in Indian cinema that is their own version of the western, sometimes called a curry western, but really it's kind of a a Descoit western, which are Descoit are bandit characters in in Indian films. There's a whole subgenre of just Descoit films in Indian, cinema. And so here we have this Descoit Western where you've got these bandits.

Andy Nelson:

You've got a very much of an old West sort of feel. It does kind of also bring in some samurai elements that we have. And this is very much, as I already mentioned, part of our seven samurai family because they loosely pattern this off of seven samurai. We've got this retired police captain who's or investigator who's living in this little village that gets raided regularly by these terrible bandits. And he remembers these two lovable criminals that he had once had this whole train.

Andy Nelson:

We'll talk about the train chase. But he had this incident on a train. They saved his life, and he's like, these two are the only two who can help me with this bandit problem. And so that's our seven samurai story. But we're also getting very much the western sensibilities that you can see, like, right out of the gate, the film starts with this booming shot coming up as a train arrives at this at this little little station in the middle of nowhere in the kind of a desert area.

Andy Nelson:

At the end of the film, it ends with a reverse of that as the train leaves. And then in the middle, we have this massacre that is that feels very much patterned straight out of Once Upon a Time in the West Yes. Where we've got, Henry Fonda's character coming in and wiping out the entire household. And so you can see all of these nods to these these different genres as they kind of create this new Dakota Western subgenre of their own, but it also feels very Indian. We've got the singing and the dancing, and we've got all sorts of comedy.

Andy Nelson:

We've got story diversions that take us as we're following a love story for a while. We've got all sorts of backstories. It's all over

Pete Wright:

the place. And, I mean, one of the principal segments is the Holi color parade festival with all of the shooting the powder. And I think that the visual conflict that exists between the sort of brutality of the Indian wild west and the vibrant color of this festival and the joyousness of these celebrations was really sort of stunning, and that's what we don't often get in in what we look at as our the sort of US domestic old West westerns. It's just sadness. Right?

Pete Wright:

Unless it's Butch and Sundance and they're riding a bike. It's generally just sadness and filth. And this movie forces you to reckon with the question, how do they get their whites so white?

Andy Nelson:

It does make you ask that, especially when they're throwing colored powder all over it. Yeah.

Pete Wright:

I yeah. I I just I felt like this this movie, that mashup, the visual mashup of of that rocky terrain and the searing sun, which was captured beautifully, made for such a memorable visual for these action sequences that I did not I did not see coming. I didn't expect this kind of movie.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. It's, you know, it's interesting. There is a term in Indian cinema called the masala film, which is kind of a blend of masala is just a blend of spices. But in the film, they say it's it's like a blend of all these different genres coming together. Now the singing and dancing, that's kind of just always there in Indian cinema.

Andy Nelson:

You can pretty much expect that in almost any genre. When I was talking about the remake, in my remakesploitation episode of of cinema, there was a really funny Indian remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, which also features a weird Michael Jackson character doing his own musical number. So, yeah, it's always gonna be there, whatever your genre. But what's interesting, and and my guest told me this, he said the term Masala film kind of came out later in the eighties and nineties, and it's kind of a pejorative term that they use for films that are, at that time, were just kind of cramming everything in there, and they just didn't have the the charm that you get in something like Chole. And so I don't know.

Andy Nelson:

He he rankled a bit at me mentioning that some of these like Cholet are kind of Masala films. He's like, well, Masala films are more if yes. In retroactively, you could call this Masala film. No one was calling this a Masala film in 1975 when it came out. That term came out later for these other ones, and people recognize, well, this is kind of a Masala film, but it's not the later Masala films that they don't look at as fondly.

Andy Nelson:

Masala Masala film.

Pete Wright:

Yep. Right. Okay. What do we know about Ramesh Sippi?

Andy Nelson:

Like, we find in a lot of Indian filmmakers very much a family affair. Right? I think his dad produced this film, GP Sippy. His son, Rohan Sippy, is a film director. His his daughter married, one of the big actors from India, and, his other son is an actor.

Andy Nelson:

And so, you know, very much kind of like that sort of influence. And I I think that having with his dad having been in the business, it's just you see this with a lot of Indian film makers where they just very much are kind of tied into this industry, and they just kind of keep passing it down. And this was his most popular film that he made in his whole career. I've only seen one other of his films called Shakti, which came out in 1982. That one, I did talk about in the episode on CinemaScope, with Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar, two mega Indian stars.

Andy Nelson:

That was the first time they came together kind of be on screen together, which got a lot of praise. But it wasn't the sort of praise that Shaulay got. I don't know much else about him other than I I think that he is just was a very busy filmmaker, you know, cranking a lot of projects out.

Pete Wright:

I think it's so interesting the the way he captures the blend of Western genre conventions with Indian sensibilities. Right? Like, we were we're already talking about just sort of the the exuberance of this production. But unlike pure sort of westerns that we've talked about in the past, which are, you know, I I mean, they wouldn't turn away a vault. You know what I mean?

Pete Wright:

They wouldn't they would our criminals wouldn't stand at a vault and be shamed into doing the right thing. They always take the money. And this one, I think, emphasizes what I understand to be this more sort of family values approach and mashing it up with the melodramatic tradition of Indian cinema at the time. And to me, that really works. And I it it's a bit of a slight of hand that Sippy pulls here because these things shouldn't work.

Pete Wright:

These things shouldn't feel natural moving from sequence to sequence, location to location, feeling gritty and and dirty in the open to the singing, to the the the Hitler homage in I mean, what? With a comic comic Hitler homage in the in the prison to the just the mass I mean, we call it the train chase. It's a massacre on that train. I mean, there's just a lot of there's a lot of death in this movie that feels undeniably western compared with or matched up with this this sort of family story of these two guys, this found family story, and and figuring out how to right generational wrongs. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:

And, you know, you bring up all the deaths, and I I think that it is important to just say that this isn't like what we would see in, like, a modern western, full of blood everywhere. No. That's true. It's it's very much kinda of its time, but also just the the family type of movie that has family western that has a lot of deaths, but, like, rarely are you seeing all the blood.

Pete Wright:

It's really stunt friendly is what it is because the deaths all happen at just a distance where you can't see blood and celebrates great falls.

Andy Nelson:

Very much. Well, also some awful horse trips, which are ugh.

Pete Wright:

Oh, yeah. Horses fall too. That's we don't that's bad news. Glad we moved past that.

Andy Nelson:

I hate I hate watching that. But, yeah, yeah, we even get a character whose arms get sliced off. Both arms

Pete Wright:

get sliced off.

Andy Nelson:

And discarded. And discarded as we find out. But I I was like, yeah. We could have given it to the dogs. I mean, I guess just discard them.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Throw them out in the desert.

Pete Wright:

Give it to the dogs. I don't know.

Pete Wright:

God's full of Hannibal. Where are the pigs?

Andy Nelson:

I know. That's more Game of Thrones. Yeah. Getting a little dark here. But, yeah, we we always cutting away from any of that.

Andy Nelson:

Even when we have the massacre at the farmhouse, like those deaths, which all feature like freeze frame deaths of each of our characters who get killed, it's all blood free. And so it is a very violent movie, but it is shot in a way that well, especially with their film board, you know, they had to they actually even initial release, they had to cut some of the scenes that we watched that have subsequently been put back in. But so even at the time, some of this was too violent for their film board. Okay. Well, do you know what the kind of stuff that was put back in?

Andy Nelson:

Like, what did

Pete Wright:

I see that I wouldn't have seen in 1975?

Andy Nelson:

Oh, well, there was a different ending. They made Sippy reshoot the ending, and the ending that we have is the reshot ending, where just as Thakur is about to kill Gabbar, all the police arrive, and they get him to stop. And they take, Gabbar away. So that actually is the one change that Sippy had to make that still exists in the actual film. Other than that, I believe it was the scene where Thakur's family gets massacred.

Andy Nelson:

That scene was cut out. And the scene in which the boy is killed, Ahmed, he gets killed when he's on his way to wherever. He gets that whole thing was also cut out. So the sensor board had cut those things out. Yeah.

Pete Wright:

They they do fly a bit in the face of the family values angle. Killing killing the child of the blind old blind man.

Andy Nelson:

Well, what's interesting is, like, we don't even see that killing. Right? We see him riding off. We see the the villains, like, bandits going, oh, look who's it looks like the I can't remember what they say. The they see him riding out, and they confront him.

Andy Nelson:

And then we cut to him or the village, and we see the horse walking back with the body of this young boy slung over it. I don't know how the horse knew how to make it home, but he does. Like, that's where we cut back to. And so it's interesting.

Pete Wright:

Horses and dogs will always find their way home, Andy.

Andy Nelson:

I I guess that's it. That's it. Yeah. If we've learned anything from movies,

Pete Wright:

that's it. They always go home. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about our principal duo, Jay and Viru.

Andy Nelson:

Jay Jay and Viru. Yeah. Jay and Viru. Viru, Darmendra plays Viru, and we've already talked a bit about Amitabh Bachchan. Fantastic pair.

Andy Nelson:

I wanna know what you think of them since this is your first time jumping into any of this, this stuff.

Pete Wright:

Well, I love it. One, it's a real Butch and Sundance kind of vibe that I get, and I'm so attuned to that kind of found family experience in films. I love great great friendships of miscreant characters. I think that they're really they're really fun. They're also incredibly talented.

Pete Wright:

Right? They're talented at whatever they do. They have whatever skills they need to get done what they need to do in their in their criminality, they do. They do it all with joy and flamboyance. They wear those great seventies outfits in a universe in which everybody else is wearing more traditional garb or sort of military garb, like desert garb, the bandit garb.

Pete Wright:

They just stand out in their denim bell bottoms, and I think that works. I recognize that's probably not a thing people noticed at the time because it was 1975, and the audiences might have been wearing the same clothes. Today, for me, that really plays. But but all leading up to the the finale of their experience together, the death of it was the death of Jai. Right?

Pete Wright:

J. J.

Andy Nelson:

Are we pronouncing it several different ways? He they say j in the movie. Yeah. It's

Pete Wright:

a Okay. I'll say j. The death of Jay on the bridge where he keeps riding around and saying Viru Viru Viru, I was genuinely moved by that moment between those guys. I thought that was incredibly powerful. And Viru's ultimate power up to be able to go lay siege to the rest of the bandits was extraordinary and exuberant playground of of violence.

Pete Wright:

And so I feel like their whole their whole relationship arc was right on. It it was it was sort of, but not really ever tested. They were always buddies. We didn't get that kind of manufactured. Oh, I hate you for a little while.

Pete Wright:

Well, we better rebuild in order to fight the the final boss kind of arc, which was just you know, it was just pleasant. It was just pleasant.

Andy Nelson:

Well, and what I love about this is, like, we're we're kind of seeing their their just like how their relationship works over the course of the story. Right? Like, we start with them very free spirited. They're hanging out. They have a fantastic song while they're they've stolen you know, they're riding around on this motorcycle with a little sidecar, which there's a whole bit where the sidecar separates everything.

Andy Nelson:

But it's like, we get this song as they're singing about the joy of their friendship. Like, that's what the whole song is. I mean, it still is one of my favorite moments in the film. It it maybe in all film. I don't know.

Andy Nelson:

But the fact that they're riding on the motorcycle, and we've got, let's see. Jay's right driving the motorcycle, and Viru climbs onto his no. Viru's driving the motorcycle, and Jay climbs onto his shoulders Yeah. While they're riding the mice motorcycle, and they're singing. Like, we have this old musical number while they're doing all of this.

Pete Wright:

And that's how it ends like that scene. They ride off down the road astride one another.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Yeah. I have to imagine that that moment was partial inspiration for not just the friendship in RRR that we end up seeing there, but also the fact that we have a moment where they're doing this whole sequence on, with one on the other's shoulders.

Pete Wright:

Yes. It has to be. And how many other movies that we haven't seen have taken the same trope and put buddies on each other's shoulders? I am sure. That needs to be a series.

Andy Nelson:

Clearly not enough. It wasn't in Star Wars. Why why was Luke never on Han's shoulders?

Pete Wright:

Luke was never on Han's shoulders. God, Andy, I'd never pick that up. Go. Jeez. It's this is the kind of introspection we need in a series next next year.

Andy Nelson:

But we get this friendship that builds from the beginning. So we already understand the friendship. And then it's just like, what is their it's their working relationship. What kind of thieves are they? They're kind of just the petty thieves stealing apples, stealing motorbikes.

Andy Nelson:

They they put a deal together with a kind of a scoundrel buddy of theirs for him to turn them into prison for the 2,000 rupee reward only so that they can escape and then split the reward of him. Like, that's the sort of plotting and planning that they have. Right? Yeah. And we have, again, that whole sequence with Thakur on the train when Thakur is taking them in, and the train gets attacked by bandits.

Andy Nelson:

Like, a lot of bandits. And the the two of them are you know, Thakur asked them to help, and the three of them end up stopping these bandits. And Thakur gets shot, and they save his life. That's the whole reason. So we know these are the the burglars with a heart of gold, and we get that sense.

Andy Nelson:

And and and so it really is a story of their friendship, of them dealing with each other, falling in love with these different women from the village, and coming to a place where they're like, I'm ready to settle down. Let's get out of this life. Let's move to this village. And so we're really seeing this kind of, like, a little bit of evolution in their in their lives. And I think that's what makes it so strong is we really see them through thick and thin and through the ups and downs of falling in love.

Andy Nelson:

I mean, Viru gets pretty down in his moment of drunkenness when when he doesn't think that he's gonna fall in love. And so I think all of that lends to this growth of this relationship. So by the time we get to that that moment on the bridge, we're fully vested in the characters.

Pete Wright:

Mhmm. Sidebar on Jay's coin. Because Jay has this two headed coin, and he flips it all the time to make calls, and he cheats his buddy, Viru. But every call that they make, they get heads every time because, you know, two heads. They're all in the interests of doing good.

Pete Wright:

Right? So Jay knows when he flips the coin that it's not going to be a trick of fate when he says, you know, if it's heads, we save we save this guy's life, Thakur's life on the train. He knows it's gonna be heads all along. To what degree do you think that level of influence or that level of trickery influences Viru? Do you think Viru would do the same thing if he if it hadn't been left up to the trick of the coin?

Pete Wright:

Or do you think there is there is between them a a bent toward a more sort of dastardly criminality that Jay is actually steering away from?

Andy Nelson:

That's an interesting angle to look at it because I think there I don't know if Viru has ever actually thought about that, like thought long and hard enough about that. Like, I'm trying to remember who first brings up, hey. This guy just showed us his safe, and it's full of money. What kind of idiot is this? We're gonna go steal it.

Andy Nelson:

Right? And they, you know, I mean, they do flip the coin to go steal all the money. But Yeah. I can't remember if it's Viru who brings that up. But I I wonder if there's this level of character as far as what we get from Viru where he's just not as insightful perhaps on these sorts of things.

Andy Nelson:

And maybe, I don't know. It's it's it that poses an interesting character decision. Because I don't think Viru would have been doing all of that, you know, making those same decisions. I think he would have just been actually flipping a coin. And we don't ever see a moment where Viru says, let's flip for it.

Andy Nelson:

Tails, we save the guy. And v and Jay has to be like, oh, you know, let's do heads. We save the guy. Heads save the guy.

Pete Wright:

It's always heads to save.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Like, so we don't get, like, moments like that. Right? So I I just have to imagine that there is this level of Jay wanting to good do good, but because of their lifestyle, kind of okay if things just go the other way too.

Pete Wright:

Yeah. I think that's probably true, but I I also like the idea that the guiding conscience is in this trickery. Right? That there is steering. We are steering toward good because of one of their natural bent toward good.

Pete Wright:

And that's like he's in like, Veeru's sort of in orbit around Jay, and just sort of goes where the planet moves. Yeah. I like it. I thought that was a really neat artifact of the movie is is the coin the coin bit. Did you did you ever have any sense that it was a trick coin?

Andy Nelson:

Oh, yeah. Very early on. I wrote actually in my notes. Early on in the film, I wrote down, I bet it's a two head coin.

Pete Wright:

I didn't get that at all. Yeah. You turkey. It it was at the it was at the very end. I I literally had the shock.

Pete Wright:

A two headed coin. Oh god. I love him so much.

Andy Nelson:

I love that so much that you, like, that you were fully vested in that coin.

Pete Wright:

Oh, it's totally bought in.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. That's awesome. That's great. Yep. Let's talk about the other pair.

Andy Nelson:

This is kind of the the big rivalry that we have here. It's Thakur, who is our police investigator, who's retired for the bulk of the film. And then we have Gabbar, our villain. What what do you think of these two and how they play in the film?

Pete Wright:

How much different do you think Thakur's performance would be if they didn't have to put him in a body sock to hide his arms? If they could just, like, put him in green sleeves and CG that those arms off.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Very different. Different times. Very different times. That

Pete Wright:

was something I got right away. Yeah. Right away. Oh, Thakur now wearing the robe? Yeah.

Pete Wright:

He doesn't have arms.

Andy Nelson:

He doesn't have any arms. Yeah. Right. It wasn't too much

Pete Wright:

of a trick to recognize

Andy Nelson:

this. I mean, I I like that they the way they drape it around him. Like, he sees himself as kind of like this this older sage who just walks around in his robe with his arms covered up. But, yeah, it it does it gets to a point where you're like, no. This is totally covering up the fact.

Pete Wright:

It it has he's sort of like when he's when they're in the shootout and he's standing on the little porch and he won't pick up the gun, And he keeps making eyes toward Viru, I guess. Yeah. And Viru's like, pick

Pete Wright:

up the gun. He's slammed around and picking

Pete Wright:

up the gun. Of course, he's not picking up the gun, but they're try it it feels like it's it's easy to see that as, oh, he's now the peacemaker. He's he's totally peaceful, and he's wearing his robes and his kind of Gandhi vibes. And that that's an easy illusion to make. I still don't I still knew he didn't have any arms.

Andy Nelson:

It it's pretty obvious. It is.

Pete Wright:

Because his torso is significant. He's been doing chest day a lot. Yeah. It's it's pretty funny.

Andy Nelson:

It is quite quite comical. The performance of him, this is, Sanjeev Kumar, is, I I think, fairly stoic in his, kind of, like, the way that he plays this character where he's like, he's very reserved. He won't say a lot. He won't give a lot of information. He does finally kind of talk about when the whole arm reveal happens.

Andy Nelson:

He reveals why he really wants Gabbar captured. That's his whole thing. Like, I want these bandits stopped, but you have to capture Gabbar and bring him to be, not kill him. And that's kind of like this mystery, which I think is, I think it plays. I think that whole thing plays in his his anger, especially as it builds to that final moment, that final confrontation where he's he's doing all of his kickboxing against Kabar, which again was fantastic with his little spiked shoes and everything.

Andy Nelson:

Like, that was that was fantastic. But it you can buy into his emotions.

Pete Wright:

You can totally buy into his emotions. So you have to admit, it's a risky plan to to have his little spiked shoes and really put all of your hope in the fact that this guy who does have two arms and has been leading a band of bandits and is a noted murderer, that you're gonna be able to stomp him to death. And I have to say, their fight was pretty good for for being a stomp fight.

Andy Nelson:

It went it went pretty well. I it was it was surprising how long it took Gabbar to actually get a hit in.

Pete Wright:

I know. This guy has been doing some training. He has not ski we've not skipped chest day or leg day, it turns out.

Pete Wright:

No.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. He's hardcore. It's great.

Pete Wright:

And do you I mean, did you do we know anything about those shoes? I was wondering about the shoes. Are they like are they snake stomping shoes? They have spikes on them. They're like snake stomping shoes or golf shoes with little pointy toes.

Andy Nelson:

I was wondering about that. I mean, everything that I've read said he's wearing those shoes so that he can specifically attack Gabbar with them. But at the same time, I was like, oh, what a clever idea at a time where they needed better treads on their shoes, and so they would just, you know, put these little things through them so that they wouldn't be slipping when they walked places. Totally. So I thought it was also just for practicality, but I'm probably wrong.

Pete Wright:

No. I like your I like your approach. I mean, why would he he wouldn't he couldn't even. He's now he's commissioning special bandit stomping shoes. No.

Pete Wright:

They have to be used for something else.

Andy Nelson:

Well, he did say for snakes. They're great for killing snakes. Yeah. I I loved all of that. Me too.

Andy Nelson:

Alright. Now let's talk about Gabbar, played by Amjad Khan. This is a fascinating villain that has become such a prominent and important villain figure in Indian history. He's looked at essentially as important as Darth Vader. Like, that's how big this villain character is for the people of India.

Andy Nelson:

The introduction of him is fantastic. His three bandits who got their butts kicked by Viru and Jay make it back to the village, and we see them kind of looking dejected and all injured. And we see some rocks in front of, like, between us and these three characters, and we just see his feet pacing across the tops of the rocks before we kind of pan up and reveal him. I thought it was a fantastic way to introduce our villain, and I thought he looked great. What did you think of of Gabbar?

Pete Wright:

Well, I I agree. All of that, the the way he's introduced was was great. But I think even more impactful was his game of Russian roulette with the with the three bullets

Pete Wright:

and the

Pete Wright:

three guys. And the way he plays that I mean, the setup is he has a a revolver with six shots. He fires off three of them so that there are three consecutive shots in the chamber. And then he spins the barrel, lodges it in place, and goes up and and then shoots each of the guys that that failed him. And as it happens, spinning the barrel lodged it such that he was just firing consecutively three empty shells.

Pete Wright:

And his performance of that, of being just shocked and and gleeful at how lucky those guys were that they got away with it, only to turn around and shoot them again shoot them each with now three consecutive rounds was diabolical. And, it goes to the brutality of this film. Like, the swings hard toward deeply menacing after after a bit of comedy. Like, I think at this point, we've already met Adolf the jailer and seen him stumbling all over the stairs. So there are some really funny bits that lead to this assassination.

Pete Wright:

He's he's rough. Do you know I mean, you say that he's as big as as Darth Vader. Was was this character used again?

Andy Nelson:

The character himself was used again. There was a film later that I think was called Gabar Singh. Yeah. Was a 2012 film. It was named after the character.

Andy Nelson:

And so and also, like, this character just inspired filmmakers to make more, quote, seemingly omnipotent oppressors as villains, end quote. So they they ended up having a lot more of these just, like, straight up villainous characters. But I don't know how often he specifically would, like, come I don't think he came back, in any other films. But, yeah, he's very, very popular. His lines, like, how many men were there and one who is scared is dead, both from the scene that we're talking about, are two of these lines that are, like, the lines that people regularly quote from Indian cinema.

Andy Nelson:

So I I think he's just like a fascinating glimpse into what works. And I mean, I find him very fun to watch. Like, he's he's not just I mean, he is an evil guy, but he's, like, smiley and cracking jokes and laughing and, like, there is this jovial side to him as a villain, which makes him, I thought, quite a bit of fun to have as the primary antagonist of our story.

Pete Wright:

Apparently, the original ending, he's killed. Yeah. And in the one that I watched, he gets he's arrested.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. In the original ending and, again, this is what I was saying, like, that that actual ending, all the other stuff has been put back, but that that actual original ending, I don't believe they've ever I think they did show it at some point, but it's not, I don't think it's ever actually been put back in. But Thakur kicks Kabar onto a nail on one of the two poles that Kabar had used to chain him when he cut off his arms, which stabs him to the back and kills him. That's how he ends up getting killed in the

Pete Wright:

How do you feel about that watching the movie? Did you want him to get got?

Andy Nelson:

Well, because of the fact that earlier in the film, when Thakur had captured him and arrested him, put him in jail, Gabbar just got out. He broke out right away, and that's when he went and killed Thakur's family. Right? Like, we saw that happen. And so the fact that he gets captured by the police did have me concerned that, okay, he's just gonna get out again.

Andy Nelson:

Honestly, it would have set up a good sequel if they decided they were gonna do something else with it. But I I guess I was okay because while it would have been satisfying in context of the story, seeing Thakur finally get his vengeance, it also doesn't Thakur doesn't have to stoop down to Gabbar's level. You know?

Pete Wright:

Yeah. Yeah. I I think that's a I think that's a really interesting kind of fine line to to walk. Right? Because you can look at it as censorship, or you can look at it as, you know, the original ending satisfies the narrative, the vengeance narrative, but it absolutely flies in the face of the theme of the the movie.

Pete Wright:

Right? Like, there are ways to choose to choose peace for this character, Thakur, who is driven by vengeance but really was an officer of the law. And I think his like, satisfying his thematic backstory is is in in full view in the actual ending that we got. And I don't I don't mind it. I don't mind it.

Pete Wright:

There's a little bit that of me that just really wanted to to watch that fight play out and see the good guys win definitively, but there's there's something about him not, like you say, stooping that I think is okay.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. I I I think that it plays. I think that it works. And, I mean, you know, we're kind of used to seeing vengeance stories, so I I don't think it would have been out of the realm of possibilities to show him actually get his vengeance, and we probably would have been fine with it. But just I don't know.

Andy Nelson:

The way that it plays, I think, ended up just working for me. I didn't mind that.

Pete Wright:

As much as this movie, as we talk about this movie being just sort of performatively brutal, I think murdering him in the street is different from shooting bandits off horseback or off cliff sides at a great distance. There's just something different and maybe too intimate about it that would have really challenged the the family nature of this film and made it something that it's that it it wasn't.

Andy Nelson:

Well, that's interesting. Like, would it have been different if if Thakur just showed up and shot him to get rid of him, like, during a fight? Like, say, when Viru has his final battle, and if if Dagor showed up and just shot, Gabbar, would that have played okay? I think it would have been different. The fact that he's just attacking him with his spiked shoes might make it feel too personal and too too much.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I did like that at least he gets him in each of his arms. So at least he, like, feels like he's unable to really kind of fight properly with his hands.

Andy Nelson:

Oh,

Pete Wright:

give me your hands. Give me your hand, Kabar. That was Yeah. Really intense. Really, Yeah.

Pete Wright:

Really So this movie has some cultural criticism that it provides a caricature of Muslims and women and makes a mockery of innocent villagers. And I don't get that because of who I am. I don't see it. Did you notice that stuff?

Andy Nelson:

It's also by modern eyes that people are looking and and saying this sort of thing. I'm not as tuned into, like, the the moments with the the Muslim where people are talking about that with the Muslim characters. Was

Pete Wright:

that

Andy Nelson:

the kid who got like, the kid, the son is the Muslim son, and he gets killed. Right. And his blind dad. As far as the women characters, I mean, I don't know. I guess this is a story about male friendship, and we definitely have the love stories between the two women.

Andy Nelson:

But to a certain extent, it's largely kept as just that. Although we do get, I mean, as as annoying as Basanti actually was as the the, self described chatterbox, I really enjoyed that that relationship. The fact that Jay thought she was absolutely annoying, and Viru was completely taken by her. And like, we have this whole love story that happens between the two of them. We've got the villains who attack her, and, you know, she she proves herself to be adept at escaping, gets onto her carriage with her horse, and and rides off.

Andy Nelson:

And, like, I thought that there was some were some fun moments with them. If anybody feels like they're getting a little bit of short shrift, it's Rada. This is, Thakur's daughter-in-law who she her husband is one of these people who had been killed in this massacre. And since then, we we get a great backstory for her later in the film when we find out that Jay has actually fallen in love with her and and wants to, you know, she seems like she's still in mourning, and and and Takur gives her this backs or gives gives him this backstory of her, how she used to be this woman who's full of color and vibrance in life, and she was very much one of these people who was, like, the the festival of colors was throwing stuff at people. Just as a side note, Jaya Baduri, who plays Rada, met Amitabh Bachchan in the rehearsals for this film and fell in love.

Andy Nelson:

They got married. They they slowed production down during this film because he got her pregnant with their first child. And so they ended up having to to delay some of her scenes because she had a baby. And this film took so long to film. By the time they got to the end, she was pregnant with their second child.

Andy Nelson:

So yeah. Yeah. But anyway, back to the character. So she's, you know, she's distraught, and so she's always wearing white. Like, she's completely drained of color in her life now.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. It seems there is this draw between Radha and Jay, And it you you have this sense of hope that they're going to come together. There will be this return of color to her life. And then, it just is so sad because Jake gets killed, and we have his, you know, the funeral scene when he's being burned on the pyre, and the camera just pans over to their house and zooms in on the the deck. And she's standing there still in white, still in mourning, just watching as her newfound love is burned to death or not burned

Pete Wright:

to Yeah. Morning.

Andy Nelson:

It's like, wow. Just brutal for this particular character. So, I mean, I guess maybe that's what I could say as far as the women characters. But I don't know. I enjoyed the women characters.

Pete Wright:

I did too. I think the women characters represent such extremes from one another. Right? Rada is the austere morning widow. And Basanti I mean, if they're making fun of anything with Basanti, it's her ADHD.

Pete Wright:

Like, she's all over the place, and I adore her. I didn't find her annoying. I found her super super charming. I thought she's she's gonna have a hero moment. And when she runs, the bandits come, and she runs for her for her carriage and yells the horse's name as and the horse starts running as she jumps on the carriage like they are.

Pete Wright:

They're the dynamic duo, her and her horse. I thought that was fantastic. I think she is delightful, and she gets the principal Holly Holly song. I think she's great.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah.

Pete Wright:

I could I coulda see. And and it wasn't like she was given short shrift either. Like, she's she's in the movie a lot.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Right. Yeah. From the time these guys arrive, she's the one who picks them up. And so she's and and right up to the very end when she and Viru write off.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. It it plays really well, and I I I don't know. I didn't have any issues with that. And then as far as the villagers, you know, I don't know. I guess in the scope of, again, looking at these people as simpler.

Andy Nelson:

I mean, it's part of the story. You know? And I I don't know. I guess I I I can see the the complaints about it, but in the scope of the story that they're telling, it works in the context of this particular tale. I mean, it's very similar again to seven samurai, magnificent seven.

Andy Nelson:

We have these villagers who hit this point where they're like, Thakur, you're getting us all killed. You're wrong. And it takes the blind man to kind of have his little conversation about his dead son to show them the way that they're they they need to stand up, that the these deaths have

Pete Wright:

to mean something. I I guess I could make the same comment about early monster movie villagers. Right? Like, are we are we saying that we treated reasonably and responsibly the villagers in the first Frankenstein movie? I don't think so.

Pete Wright:

They were idiots. You know? And they were pitchforks and torches idiots, and, and that's the point. Right? Like, they were the unreasonable mass that needed to exist in order to confront the reality of the narrative.

Pete Wright:

And that's exactly what we have here.

Andy Nelson:

I guess I was you know, considering that this is a loose retelling, or at least it's pulling elements from seven samurai, I was wondering if they were going to bring the villagers into their attacks at some point. Like, that was something I kind of was expecting. And even at the end, you know, as we're building, I I even wrote in my notes. I'm like, oh, the villagers finally show up. Like, they're gonna finally do their part and kind of contribute and and help in bringing these bandits down, but they only show up.

Andy Nelson:

They don't actually really do anything. They'll do anything. I guess that's not the story we're getting here. It's not about the villagers, but maybe that could have helped that criticism if if the villagers had jumped in and actually joined the fray.

Pete Wright:

Maybe. Maybe. I think you're I think you're right. But then this is, to your point, exactly where this movie and the seven samurai diverge. Yeah.

Pete Wright:

Right. We don't have a montage of teaching the villagers how to fire their bows and arrows. Right. You know, into into scarecrows.

Andy Nelson:

No. Nor do we have Toshiro Mifune riding on one of his friend's shoulders in that film. God. But what

Pete Wright:

if we did? Yeah. What kind of world would that be?

Andy Nelson:

Like, upon is it Takashi Shimura who Mhmm. Leads the band? Like, man. I'd watch the hell out of that movie. This is a musical.

Andy Nelson:

What did what did you think of the songs? How did they all play for you? We've got a a good lineup of of musical sequences.

Pete Wright:

Oh, they're great. I I mean, I I found them while I while they were happening, I was right in bopping right along. I mean, they're all joyous songs of of uptempo. And the only downside is I they none of them on the version I watched were subtitled at all. So I really have no idea what the songs were about.

Pete Wright:

Really? Everything else is subtitled, but the songs were just sound to me. So Where did you watch it? Apple TV.

Andy Nelson:

Interesting. What a weird was your version the the, I don't know, 2004 or so three d remastered version? Yes. Okay. So I so we had the same three d version with added little explosive bits flying at us periodically, which I thought was funny.

Pete Wright:

And I and I watched it in the Vision Pro, and the three d works. Oh, really cool.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. It actually plays that way. That's nice. Yeah. So weird because I watched it on Tubi, and I did have subtitles through the songs.

Andy Nelson:

So you get all the lyrics about their friendship or the love or whatever. I had to write my own. You just wrote your own lyrics for the songs. Perfect. That's probably probably worked just

Pete Wright:

fine. I think I I'll bet we landed in the same place.

Andy Nelson:

I love the songs. This is you know, it's there is something to get used to in Indian cinema. The fact that most of the films that you watch, even through today, rarely are you going to see the actors actually singing their songs. They have playback singers singing all of the different parts. And I think that's such a strange element.

Andy Nelson:

I think in all of the movies I've seen featuring Amitabh Bachchan now, I think there's been one film where he sang one song himself. Wow. The rest of the time, it's just the playback singers. Like, that's a whole award category in and of itself. Best playback singing.

Andy Nelson:

Wow. Yeah. That's a bummer,

Pete Wright:

I guess. I mean, we also had the monkeys where we totally screwed the monkeys for a while. So I guess we know how to do that.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. It's just such a weird thing. You know? Like, that's just a big part of it. And and sometimes you get like, my wife and I have watched a few of these, and there's a few playback singers who are very popular even if they don't always sound the right age for the Mhmm.

Andy Nelson:

That they're singing for. And sometimes you're watching someone and you're like, this sounds like an old lady singing suddenly. Turns out it is an old lady singing. So it does happen every once in a while. But That's funny.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. I still enjoyed it. So well, I'm bummed that you didn't get the lyrics for it. But Me too. Oh, well.

Pete Wright:

It is what it is.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. What else? What else stands out for you? Any any last little bits and pieces?

Pete Wright:

I think I'm good. I think we may have belabored this. I in in our effort to make a podcast about the movie as long as the movie, we're on the right track. But I do think I'm I've set my peace.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Well, I had a great time with it. I think in the scope of this series and just closing this series out, I think it was really an interesting exploration to look at the set of films from around the world that are celebrating their fiftieth anniversary this year that I think they all really stand up. And this film, you can see why it is so popular. It's just a lot of fun, great characters, lot of energy.

Andy Nelson:

It just works. And so I'm I'm glad to have finally seen it and, yeah, and celebrate it.

Pete Wright:

Me too.

Andy Nelson:

For sure. Alright. Well, we will be right back. But first, our credits.

Pete Wright:

The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Rizian Fabian Fustinoni, Shah Ravina, Oriole Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats the awards and numbers at d-numbers.com, boxofficemojo.com, imbb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm, and if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.

Andy Nelson:

Sometimes, all we really need is a good friend. You know? Someone who's there to help you remember what movie you watched last Thursday. Someone who can help you track which Bollywood movies you've seen and which are still holes for you to fill. Someone who can carry you on their shoulders and sing a duet with you while riding a motorcycle.

Andy Nelson:

Well, I'm here to tell you that you've got that friend in Letterboxd. Letterboxd is here to be your ultimate movie buddy. The Butch to your Sundance, the Thelma to your Louise, the Viru to your Jay, your partner in crime in the wild world of films. With Letterboxd, you'll never have to face the vast landscape of cinema alone. It's more than just a platform.

Andy Nelson:

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Andy Nelson:

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Andy Nelson:

Visit thenextreel.com/letterbox, or sign up on letterbox with the code next reel. Andy,

Pete Wright:

sequels and remakes. I haven't read your notes because there's a dizzying amount, a dizzying number of bullets ahead of us.

Andy Nelson:

There's a lot. A lot of stuff. And actually, you this goes back to your question that you had earlier. Has Gabor Singh shown up in another film? And I forgot about this one.

Andy Nelson:

Amjad Khan himself played Gabor Singh again in the 1991 spoof, Ramgar Keshole, and then also went on to reprise his character in all sorts of commercials. And then I already mentioned the 2012 Gubar Singh Tolugu film. The comedian Jagdeep, he played Sourma Bopali in the film. He's the guy who works at the lumber mill where they do the deal to help him get, the money for when they break out of prison. Yeah.

Andy Nelson:

He used his show late success to create a spin off, directing and playing the lead in the 1988 film Surma Bopali, in which, Darmendra and Bhaktan actually both came back to play, to do cameos of themselves. Shoalay itself was remade in Bangladesh as Dost Dushman, becoming the first Dollywood film to portray a number of lengthy action scenes, which led to it being condemned by many film critics for bringing violence to the cinema screen in Bangladesh, which I guess they were light on up to that point in 1977. There was another attempt to remake Sholay. Ram Gopal Varma made the film Ogg in 02/2007. And in this one, Amitabh Bachchan was the villain.

Andy Nelson:

Ended up being a commercial and critical disaster. Everyone pretty much hated that one. There have been video game versions of Sholay. There was the Chole Romgar Express iPhone game. There was the game Chole bullets of justice.

Andy Nelson:

There was an animated TV film adaptation called Chole Adventures. In 2019, there was a film called the Chole Girl based on the stuntwoman Reshma Pathan. She was, Molini's body double in the film who played Basanti. There have been books. There have been just so many different things.

Andy Nelson:

The three d rerelease in 2014, one person called Sholay, the no longer just a film, but an event. It had become that important. And Shikhar Kapoor, the filmmaker, he actually said, there's never been a more defining film on the Indian screen. Indian film history can be divided into Shole BC and Shole AD, which I think is really funny. And that's just the film, Pete.

Andy Nelson:

Now let me talk about the songs. The film Mabuba Mabuba, this song has been anthologized, remixed, recreated. Kronos Quartet actually has a Grammy nominated album called You've Stolen My Heart, which is all songs that are by the writer who wrote the songs for Sholem. And, Mabuba Mabuba, they have a version on that one. Then Himesh Roshmaiah performed the song in a film in 2007 called Apkasuror.

Andy Nelson:

The other song, De Ye Dosti, has been called the ultimate friendship anthem. This song has been remixed and sung for different films. And interestingly enough, in 2010, this song was used to symbolize India's friendship with The United States during a visit from president Barack Obama. Wow. Do you remember those days?

Andy Nelson:

They seem so far away.

Pete Wright:

That's incredible. What a legacy this film has established, and yet feels so far away. I'm so glad we watched it. Have this one do it award season.

Andy Nelson:

It had five wins with five other nominations at the Film Fair Awards, which is India's Oscars. It won for best editor. Amjad Khan was nominated for best supporting actor, but lost to Shashi Kapoor in Dewar, a film I did talk about on the India's angry young man. Excellent film, Pete. You should watch Dwar.

Andy Nelson:

It is Okay. It's a great one. Also lost best director to Dwar, best film to Dwar. Sanjeev Kumar Kumar was nominated for best actor, but lost to himself in Indi. I think this is why the Oscars don't let actors be nominated twice in the same category, because they don't want them to, you know, have that sort of thing.

Andy Nelson:

It also has lost best story to Dwar. And then in 02/2005, it was actually it won a special award for best film in the last fifty years of Indian cinema. And then over at the Bengali Film Journalist Awards, it won best supporting actor, for Amjad Khan, best art director, and best cinematographer.

Pete Wright:

Alright. Did pretty well. But none of that matters, Andy. None of it matters if it didn't make any money.

Andy Nelson:

How did it do at the box office? Well, CP had an estimated 30,000,000 rupees or 3,300,000.0 US dollars for his film, which is about 19,800,000.0 in today's dollars.

Pete Wright:

Can I just stop you right there and say this is a hundred and ninety eight minute movie for $3,300,000? Yeah. Even in 1975, that's extraordinary to me. That's crazy. I know.

Pete Wright:

Please go on.

Andy Nelson:

I hear you. The movie opened 08/15/1975, Indian Independence Day in Bombay. It actually struggled for the first two weeks due to its lackluster reviews and not much marketing, to the point where the director and writers were considering rewriting some scenes so Bhakchan's character wouldn't die. But after those first two weeks, word-of-mouth picked up, and with the help of the soundtrack release, it exploded. Becoming an overnight sensation, it became the highest grossing Hindi language film of the year, earning 16,800,000.0 in India or 98,800,000.0 in today's dollars.

Andy Nelson:

That's an adjusted profit per finished minute of $387,000. And with all of its subsequent releases, it's more than doubled its earnings. It was also a huge success in The Soviet Union and in China. From there, it has held a number of records. It had the longest theatrical run until DDLJ broke the record in 02/2001.

Andy Nelson:

Its initial theatrical earnings was a record for nineteen years, which was also how long it held the record for being the highest grossing film in India. It was also the highest grossing film until 1982. Adjusted for inflation, they say it's still one of the highest grossing films in the history of Indian cinema. So even with some estimates, it still is just a huge, huge winner.

Pete Wright:

That's just extraordinary. Do do Indian filmmakers make short films? Seems like all the films you make me watch are really long.

Andy Nelson:

I mean, there are some that I've watched that are, like, you know, under two hours.

Pete Wright:

Any in the ninety minute range? Ninety minutes is a sweet spot. Think you know.

Andy Nelson:

I know. Just look at this like two ninety minute films.

Pete Wright:

Yeah. No. You have to.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. You got you got the intermission in the middle? Just, you know.

Pete Wright:

And yet and yet, all all of the movies I've watched is in Daggy Nama Lega Dabara. It's huge. And I'll watch that any day of the week. Any day of the week. Yeah.

Pete Wright:

I'll watch a movie.

Andy Nelson:

Alright. Fantastic movie. Yeah. Alright.

Pete Wright:

Well, I am A great film. Thrilled we watched it.

Pete Wright:

Yeah.

Andy Nelson:

Yeah. Huge. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. So alright.

Andy Nelson:

That is it for today's conversation. Next week, we will continue our seven samurai Samurai family series with a look at battle beyond the stars. We'll be right

Pete Wright:

back for our ratings. It was bound to come round.

Andy Nelson:

It was. Once we had our Roger Corman series

Pete Wright:

Yep.

Andy Nelson:

It was inevitable that this movie would end up on our list. Evitable.

Pete Wright:

So you think you know everything about movies. You listen to podcasts. You read reviews. You argue on the Internet. But let me ask you something.

Pete Wright:

When the next reel drops that bonus episode analyzing the director's cut, where are you? Sitting there empty handed like some amateur film student boob when we're streaming live, recording sessions, revealing our secrets, sharing our process, you're locked out, watching from the outside like some thug waiting for orders. This is no way to live. You deserve better than scraps. You deserve the full experience.

Pete Wright:

The Next Real Family membership program gives you power. Early access, you hear our hottest takes before the masses or sometimes fifty years after the masses. You'll get bonus content hidden in every episode, like buried treasure, your own private podcast feed, ad free episodes, Discord access, and more exclusive than My Fortress in These Here Hills. And the greatest victory of all, directly supporting the podcast you love instead of just taking, taking, taking like some common bandit. Truestory.fm/join.

Pete Wright:

Join now because in this digital wasteland, you can either rule with us or keep begging for scraps. Choose wisely. I don't ask twice.

Pete Wright:

Letterboxd, Andy. That's what comes next. Letterboxd. Letterboxd.com. Letterboxd.com/thenextreel.

Pete Wright:

That's where you find our HQ page, and that's where we leave our reviews and such and so and such and so. And this is our chance to apply our stars and hearts, and I'd like to know how you will apply your stars and arts to Sholay.

Andy Nelson:

I had such a blast with this film. I'm I'm I'm torn. Like, is this four and a half? Is it just a straight up five star film? I had a great time.

Andy Nelson:

I'm gonna say four and a half for now, but it it easily could bump up to a five. Man. I don't know. Now you're gonna make me feel guilty. No.

Andy Nelson:

No. Five stars. I was gonna say five stars this whole time.

Pete Wright:

You alright. I don't even know how to approach you about this. I was going to because I can't do I'm Pete. Half stars. Right.

Pete Wright:

Nice to meet you. And I was going to if you were gonna do four stars, I might have done four stars. But at four and a half, you make me question, wait. Why the hell would I lose a half star on this movie? Lampooning Hitler in the jail, that's a big swing.

Pete Wright:

I'm gonna go five stars for sure. And the fact that that turned you around, I'm I don't have a problem with that.

Andy Nelson:

No. It is so much fun. I can't see how anyone would watch this and not just have a great time from start to finish. The characters are blast. The the scenes are fun.

Andy Nelson:

The action sequences are a thrill. I just it's a great film. So everyone should definitely check this out. If you're gonna if you haven't dug into Bollywood films yet, and you've made it through this whole conversation, and we've spoiled it all for you, give this one a shot. I think you'll have a good time.

Pete Wright:

It's one of those where even if it's spoiled, I still think you're gonna enjoy it. Absolutely. It's a great way to enter the the gestalt of these kinds of films.

Andy Nelson:

Absolutely. Alright. Well, that averages out to five stars in a heart. Look at that. You can find that over on our account on Letterboxd at the next reel.

Andy Nelson:

You can find me there at Soda Greek Film, and you can find Pete there at Pete Wright. So what did you think about Showlay? We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the ShowTalk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.

Pete Wright:

When the movie ends, our conversation begins.

Andy Nelson:

Letterbox give it, Andrew, as letterbox always doeth.

Pete Wright:

Okay. What was your criteria for this?

Andy Nelson:

I just wanted a fun one, really. I'm just looking for a fun one. There are a lot. So it's easy pickings. Okay.

Pete Wright:

Well, I went for a fun one too. There are a lot, and I'm gonna go first. So just in case you have an RRR reference, I get it first.

Andy Nelson:

Okay. I'm loving it.

Pete Wright:

Whole game. Loving it. Alright. Mine cut is a four and a half from Daedalus one three three who says, he showed a walked so that RRR could German suplex a bloody leopard. Old school Bollywood classic shot like a spaghetti western, lots of action, romance, sweeping wide shots, the legally required amount of dance sequences.

Pete Wright:

Yes. Absolutely. I loved it.

Andy Nelson:

That's fantastic. I love it. Well, I've got a four and a half and a heart by Ebbs who says, stop asking who's the man in the relationship. Start asking who's the one driving the motorcycle, and who's the one playing the harmonica?

Pete Wright:

There's always someone who plays the harmonica. In every relationship, there's a driver of a motorcycle and a harmonica player. It's important to remember. Alright. Thanks, Letterboxd.

Pete Wright:

You're the best.